MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Prochazka KO's Reyes | Ruiz vs Arreola | Rumble Johnson | Canelo vs Saunders | Ep 151

Episode Date: May 3, 2021

No better way to start your week then with MK. Luke and Brian recap this weekends UFC event as Jiri Prochazka KOs Dominick Reyes in the 2nd round. Is he next in line for a title shot behind Glover Teixeira? Plus, Andy Ruiz beats Chris Arreola. Did Ruiz match expectations in this comeback fight? Also, Anthony 'Rumble' Johnson will still be on the Bellator 258 card after a replacement was found. Are Johnson's expectations higher now. Canelo Alvarez takes on Billy Joe Saunders this weekend. The boys breakdown the storylines. --------------------------- 'Morning Kombat’ is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Bullhorn and wherever else you listen to podcasts.    For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit: store.sho.com   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat  To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

it is the third of may 2021 and it is time diggity donks for morning combat hello everyone my name is luke thomas i'm from cbs sports and showtime and a bunch of other places in the viacom cbs family and i am joined by the uh wars to my info the anon to well he's the cue to my anon i should say he's everyone's least favorite and yet most favorite the king of connecticut himself brian campbell brian campbell how are you good sir hi luke uh like the immortal uh ufc patriot canada's own harold scott howard once said if you're coming on then come on so uh i'm coming on all right good i'm glad to see it no message in the background for the audience today no because here's the deal luke not that excited about today's show in fact you

know people can probably turn off now because uh this could be a little bit more of a mail-in since the car to pick you up is in route you and i luke heading on down to the mohegan Tribal Reservation for not only all things Bellator 258, but if you will, Luke, a week-long cornucopia of all things MK. We're filming a doc. We got a live interview special. We got weigh-in reaction. We got a lot of shit going on this week,

and I can't wait, Luke, to see you in person, to tickle the gallbladder a little, like, you know, a little how's your father, find out how you are, and also, Luke, mail in today's show. So, yeah, there you go. Well, we don't have to mail in today's show. We just have to be done by 1230 because the car is taking me literally.

The instant the show is over, I have to shut my suitcase, get to the car, and I have to go to the airport because I've got to get there tomorrow. We have to quarantine. We have to COVID test despite being vaccinated, which is weird. But we're going to do it because we're team players here, BC. I think you know that as well as I do. And then we have a huge week in store. They don't want us to promote the things that we're actually going to be doing because everything everything is up in the not everything is up in

the air but things change i've discovered at the last minute quite often we keep promoting this new merch line i haven't seen it yet all right all right so if you're coming on showtimes merch department then come on already okay i want the people wearing these eyes on the tattoo on titty saying uh big bc all right let's do this uh fair enough so we but okay on the schedule i can tell you this each day there's a ton of stuff going on so be on the lookout for um for some good stuff coming your way yeah the bonus cup will be runneth over luke maybe a little room service diaries i mean i'm so ready i am so amped up luke. I'm considering an injection of testosterone right to the bag just to kind of see what happens next, you know?

Yeah, your testicles might work for once, huh? That'd be nice. Luke, post three needles, not a lot going on down there, all right? I don't know. Fair enough. I'm only teasing. I'm only teasing. I will say this, BC.

We do have a lot of other stuff on the calendar, but one thing I know that we can promote for sure, for sure, there will be some type of weigh-in coverage on Thursday. That's a little up in the air about exactly what it will look like, but there will be some. And more importantly, live post-fight show for Bellator 258. So as soon as Bellator 258 is over, head over to us. We'll have the link out for you.

We're going to have a post-fight show, I think, in the arena. Well, actually, BC, we weren't even allowed on the premises last time. This time we're in the arena. We're moving on up. You understand that? Yeah, we are. We are getting there, Luke. Okay, maybe a live interview special too.

So I'm just – it's going to be a special week, so you should probably tune out now. This show probably already hit its peak. But I'll still talk about the weekend if you want me to, because I don't know if you saw that savage, eerie Prochazka. Good lord, Luke. Wow. We have a lot to get to.

We have a lot to get to with that. So first things first, as always, thumbs up on the video. Hit subscribe. Welcome to any new subscribers. If this is your first show, we'll do this three times a week, plus a whole lot more this week. If you want to try Showtime, of course, you can follow us there. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

You can see it. If you want to try Showtime, you certainly can. You can go to Showtime.com and get a 30-day free trial. If you're ready to take that plunge, you can see the link below right there. Show.com slash Bellator MMA. If you sign up now, you get the first six months of all of showtime live and on demand everything for five bucks a month for the first six months so there's your link show.com slash bellator mma we are still going to do fan submissions we are still going to do dead wrong real quickly bc so morning combat

at gmail.com keep them coming we always appreciate them when you do you were going to say good sir i was going to say luke you know when one of your mid-tier friends not one of your rider dies your high school bros your whatever but one of your mid-tier friends, not one of your ride-or-dies, your high school bros, your whatever, but one of your mid-tier friends asks you to come over for a party, and you're like, I don't really want to say yes because I kind of want to find out first who's going. People may have that same trepidation of hitting that subscribe button and getting on this rocket ship MK that's taking off,

but I want you to know that the celebrity guest list of clientele that watch this show on the reg, it's taken off, but I want you to know that the celebrity guest list of clientele that watch this show on the reg, it's growing large. So I'd love to welcome ECW legend, the great Scott Levy, a.k.a. Quote the Raven, never more, to what's going on here on MK. Big fan, Mutual Admiration Society, Spider-Man meme. I see you, brother. All right?

All right. There you go. Very good. And then, yeah, if you want some merch the old merch uh store dude it's a little weird we're getting like complacent about having a store on the showtime website i feel like it's still pretty cool but i admit i don't know where 2.0 is at at this point but if you want the old one store.show.com there you go you get your mk merch uh okay bc anything else before we get started no no look that car's coming to pick you up so let's get this shit on the road all right

all right so let's get it on the road indeed first things first ladies and gentlemen let's talk about that ufc main event we all knew it was going to be action-packed and it delivered and then some okay yuri prohachka defeats dominic reyes in what can only be said as, number one, a KO. Number two, spinning back elbow. Number three, not a TKO, full-on KO. He was out-out. Maybe a contender of the year for fight of the year. Or excuse me, I should say knockout of the year.

You could go on and on. BC, in your mind, after Glover Teixeira, because that fight is already booked, is Yuri Prochocka the next to contend for a UFC light heavyweight title? According to Dana White, he is. And what a wild, wild turn of events. And it's not like, you know, his UFC debut against Volkan Ozdemir was the first time any of us had heard of him. No, we'd sort of seen some of the damage he's been doing in Rizzo. I mean, I'm a gigantic Rizzo fan. We had seen the damage he had been doing.

But to finally make the move to UFC when he felt he was most ready and to come in here with a pair of destruction victories and now be on the doorstep of a title shot, it's just like, whoa. How did this happen? How did we get here? And I know your big your boy bc told you last week you know the pick here is dom reyes on plus money and luke it was why a lot of us saw yuri prohatska against vulcan ozdemir get lit up early he fights a wild and out of control style which to your point as you said in the preview he's gonna beat some guys along the way

but the totality of this performance against Dom Reyes I mean he shaved off some of the fat on the you know curved on the edges of his game and this was brutal deluxe yes speedball too for your old old school PC gamers this was as violent a finish Luke when you take into account not just the spinning elbow out of nowhere but the fact that Dom Reyes's head bounced off the canvas in such a scary sort of basketball way this was some vicious shit and he had a walk through hell to get there and he didn't have a mark on his face in doing so he really only had that one moment where he was wobbling got taken down but he fought out of the guillotine I mean this

was a guy who's putting his balls on the line, going full speed ahead and basically saying, who can handle the heat in this kitchen? It's great for TV. You love sort of the weird martial arts elements of what he's doing with the haircut and the respect and all that. But at the end of the day, Luke, he's going to push an insane pace in front of you. And mind you, it's not like, you know, he's not the only guy that comes out aggressive and comes after you. We've seen a front of you. And mind you, it's not like, you know, he's not the only guy that comes out aggressive

and comes after you. We've seen a lot of that, but there aren't a lot of aggressive guys who can have the combination of the chin and the technique in some of these potential finishing blows. He is a dangerous piece of business that is a threat to win this championship. And a week ago, I knew he was fun.

I knew he was scary. I didn't know he could do this to Dom Reyes. So well done. Shout out to the antenna picking up the Wi-Fi signal there inside the Apex. Luke, how good is he? How the frick good is this guy? He's very good. He's very, very good.

Here's what I would say about him. I said this on Twitter immediately afterwards. And some folks agreed, some folks didn't. And after a little bit of time of thinking about it, I will amend it slightly. At first, I said he was kind of like a Justin Gaethje at 205. Now, not the Reformation Justin Gaethje, the one that fought like Michael, who's the guy he fought in his debut? Johnson.

Johnson, yeah, he fought Michael Johnson. A little bit more like that. This guy who just comes excuse me puts on insane amounts of pressure and kind of gets lit up doing it but because he's got this sort of style adapted he's going to win out in the end and to that point you know he had a negative differential in terms of strikes landed versus absorbed before the fight the good news is he now has a positive differential but not by much he lands on average in his two UFC fights 7.19 strikes per minute which is insanely high

that is I mean folks if you're in the threes on that you're doing well four would be high five is astronomical he's this guy is sitting at seven I mean that is and he punches hard too like those are a very legitimate seven the downside is he's sitting at strikes of sword per minute at 6.8 let me just tell you something folks the math on this is pretty clear if you per minute at 6.8. Let me just tell you something, folks. The math on this is pretty clear. If you're getting hit 6.8 times a minute on average, you know, you're going to take an L eventually in the UFC. There is an issue with his defense. But you've got to understand what makes this guy so magical. He's a little bit less like a Justin Gaethje

in the way that I thought before, though that pressure and getting hit so much, that is real. But it's a little bit like Tony Ferguson plus the old Justin Gaethje at 205. It's a little bit of like, why do we like Yuri Prochocka? He's kind of weird. He has a weird hairstyle. He has a weird way of looking at the world. He's got a weird fight style, but he's also insanely, insanely talented, formidable. It won't last forever, but right now he's got a rock chin, an absolute granite piece attached to his neck.

And that has enabled him to just do these insane, risk-taking things that are full of excitement, BC, full of fun. And I got to tell you, he is very capable of winning that title. Luke, we want people, you know, in a casual sense, right? We want people to just go out there and empty the damn tank in the first five minutes and just brawl, right? There's a reason you don't see that, right? I mean, remember when Derek Brunson did that to Robert Whitaker? And he made it a shitbag crazy five minutes and he got knocked out. And I think the reason why you don't see that is if you're not the fighter with the better technique and setup

and all that, more than likely you're going to get knocked out unless your opponent has a distinct weakness in the terms of like his backbone or his chin or whatever. Yet what Prochaska did, I mean, the way that I handicapped that fight, now, I was wrong, all right? Anybody that bet money on my bets, maybe that's why Luke isn't willing to put his balls on the line to take that out. I'll be dead wrong here, but what I essentially thought in my head was Prochazka's going to do exactly what he's going to do. He's going to step on the gas.

The problem is Tom Reyes is really freaking good. He understands footwork, boxing, counter angles. He also has a stick on him. Yet, Luke, you saw that. Reyes responded to Prochazka's pressure probably the best way any elite fighter could. He swiveled. He sat down on his counter shots. Yeah, he got banged up a bit early.

But there were stretches in the fight where Reyes by far was landing the cleaner better shots and to your point just now about the chin he wasn't going anywhere meaning Prochazka so when somebody is willing to do that I mean just walk into traffic the shelf life is going to be short but you know to cue up Michael Chandler's uh quote, I don't think Yuri Prochazka's here for a long time, right? I mean, he's here for a good-ass time. And there may not be somebody that stops him before he puts that piece of gold around his waist. And maybe a week ago, I was like,

more reckless than talented, but I love watching him. But that reckless level and that talent level is coming together pretty high, and it's making a special concoction. I cannot believe Dom Reyes has lost three fights in a row, including two by knockout, including one in which he was face splattered on the ground. But holy shit, we are here, Luke.

And maybe there's something to, and they mentioned it on the broadcast, it's not an original BC idea, but maybe this is something to what Prochazka did. The reason why, if you hadn't seen him or heard of him before UFC, where you're like, where'd this guy come from? The reason why it took him so long and he built up such a streak 11 in a row before this fight, now 12 in a row, is because he did want to wait until he felt he was a finished product. We don't see that anymore, Luke. Everybody's getting thrown or rushed in. If you show a pulse on the Dana White Contender Series, they'll launch you into a big fight.

So there's something to what he did. Yeah, it's a style that very few could mimic. Yes, it's a style that I'm not even sure Prochaska himself for a long period of time can sustain. But again, it's a perfect storm at the moment. It's must-see freaking TV. I can't believe Dana is already giving this guy a title shot. But when you're riding that kind of run and you look that great,

what do you think the betting odds are going to look like when Prochaska goes in there against the winner of Blachowicz and Glover Teixeira? He may end up being favored, Luke. Seriously. It's wild. He might. You know what? I was thinking about this. I'm like, okay, so let's say he does get the title shot next, which we all at this point expect. What would it look like depending on the matchup you got to like it either way because on the feet Teixeira is not going to play those games which is to say he's either going to fall victim to them or he's just not going to play them he's

going to go for the takedown which we know you know he's got not only does a guy like Levert Teixeira have great takedowns he can pass he's a black belt in jiu-jitsu I mean look at the ground and pound he was dislodging the teeth of Anthony Smith so that could get interesting but Prochaska finds offense anywhere so that's going to be difficult no matter what the one that actually to me is a little bit more interesting if you think about it BC would actually be the current champion Jan Blachowicz and I'll tell you why Prochaska has a need to speed the fight up right he wants to corner you he wants you to make mistakes he wants you to extend and that's when he just begins to

build on things over and over and over again but he's the waves are constantly crashing into the shore well what does Blachowicz do the opposite he likes to slow things down a little bit make the pace a little bit more calm so he can blitz you, so he can, you know, find a way to get a set of trap at the last minute. Like he's very much about that kind of style of fighting. And so what would win out there? The frenetic, frantic pace of Prochocka or the more slowed down, even keeled pace of Blachowicz? And the answer is, I have no idea, but you got to love how the two match up there. Yeah, absolutely, I do. I love Bilal Mohamed's tweet.

I believe it was Bilal who, by the way, has become a very good follow, and they feature him a lot on the screen during UFC fights. He said essentially Prochazka is what Johnny Walker could have been or should have been if he had sort of figured it all out. And obviously, there's still time for Johnny Walker, and he is figuring some stuff out. But Luke, I did see some natural critics going, okay, crazy ass fight. Prochazka lured Dom Reyes into a shit fest of wildness and it just so happened that year he came out on top.

But what's he gonna do against a legit wrestler? What's he gonna do against a guy with a ground game? Well, look, Jan Blachowicz can wrestle. Glover Teixeira, his second half of his career now in this re-emergence is more about technique efficiency on the ground. What are you, your eyes? Cause your eyes are a lot more trained to this than mine. In fact, Luke, I was prepared to mail in this show until I remembered how exciting Prochazka is and made me and my blood's just boiling right now. But your

eyes can see Luke. I mean, if you could only see, right? Right, Luke? You know, maybe you'd understand. Do you understand the flaws in this man? Can they be exposed by an elite here? For sure. I mean, dude, Dominic Reyes was landing on this guy. You look at the numbers. Dominic landed almost 40 punches on him in the first round. I mean, that's a lot of damage, folks. It wasn't like Reyes was firing, and then Prochka has a little bit of defense too he'll block he'll move a little bit it's not like he just stands there completely but the way in which he fights it just opens him up to these kinds of things and Reyes was landing straight hard shots on him and not just jabs either man straights crosses the whole nine yards when I said straight

previous segment linear but you know he's coming with the power hand the the key to this whole thing is I think a couple of things. Imagine St. Pierre was 205, right? Imagine he was. How would St. Pierre fight this guy? St. Pierre would stick behind the jab, lateral movement, constant fakes and feints, and he'd be going for the takedown pretty considerably. I don't think he would spend a lot of time on the feet

because what was St. Pierre's defining feature for that last big chapter of his career? It was reducing the amount of chaos that is actually possible in the course of a high-level MMA fight. How do you reduce just the crazy amount of variables that could change the direction of this at any time? He was very good at that. Prochocka lives in that space. If you're playing with him too long against the fence and it seems like he misses, then he comes right back with that. You simply cannot allow that. You have to really close the space on him and put him. One of the benefits of being a dominant grappler, BC, is that when you are doing what you're doing, whether you're underneath or on top, you are going to create scenarios where you're forcing your opponent

to pick a choice. You're going to go left, you're going to go right. And no matter which way you go, I know exactly what I have to do once you get there. They have the routes to submissions or other dominant positions already planned out. You need to put Prochocka in that situation. You need to put him in a situation where he is having to respond to the choices you lay out for him. Because if you just give him open space, even if you land hard punches on him for now it is simply not enough it is not enough he defies all the rules in that way so it's going to take someone bc who is disciplined the entire time that is hard i think jan has that though yeah you know again jan is in his own sort of small window given his age of finding out how great he

can be he can be. He might be that perfect solution, but he's got to get through Glover first. I think this all just plays together to something I teased on Friday's show, that 205 is turning around pretty quickly for the UFC. When Jon Jones left, there was a large gaping hole there. There didn't seem to be a star waiting, although we all pre-anointed Dom Reyes to maybe be that guy. The business that they're making now, it's pretty damn fun.

I know there's a lot of Rakic fans out there. Let's see if he can parachute into this mix. This very elite crust now at 205, they're making fun fights. I love it. I love it. I gotta tell you, a Rakic versus Prochocka fight, that is nuts. That's nuts.

We're going to be going to Bellator this week, and we should say that a lot. Bellator's light heavyweight division is That is nuts. Yeah. That's nuts. You had mentioned, you know, we're here. We're going to be going to Bellator this week and we should say that a lot. Bellator's light heavyweight division is tremendous. Maybe one of their best, maybe one of the best, maybe the best division anywhere for light heavyweights of any organization. That's a real thing you could maybe argue. But I also just want to say when you've got the rackets coming up and you've got the Prochazkas coming up and you see what they've got.

You've still got some old guys hanging around out there with Teixeira and Blachowicz. Dude, don't lose sight of UFC's light heavyweight division either. It's a good division over there. It's a great one. And you're beginning to see, to your point, BC, some of these other guys emerge. I love it when some of these faces

begin to stamp their flag in the ground, so to speak. I love it. I love it, Luke. I love it. I love it, Luke. All right. I love it. So let's go to point number two here, if we can, BC, on the co-main. This one broke my heart a little bit, not because we have anything against the winner,

but because the loser in this particular case is so well-liked. But they are what they are. Giga Chikadze, one of these guys out of this Georgian revolution that's happening inside UFC and MMA more broadly. Well, he made short work of Cub Swanson, hit him with a body shot, it folded him, followed him up, and that was all she wrote. So, BC, we knew this was maybe kind of a, not torch passing exactly, but new guard kind of replacing old guard fight.

Your biggest takeaway is what from this win? That I need to get on board and figure out how to pronounce this guy's name, Luke, because he's not going anywhere. Eight fights, eight wins in a row since that Dana White Contender Series loss. And you see the confidence. I mean, you see the nastiness with that kind of strike hitting that spot, right? That game-ending spot where even a guy like Cub Swanson, who I don't think, you know,'m not gonna speak for myself but i don't think we as a mma society like revel as much as we should in how fun cub swanson can make fights whether he's fighting guys on the way up whether he's fighting elites i mean he makes so many fun fights because he just guts it

out and you know he got kicked in the guts and in that one spot that you just can't come back from so yeah it seems like chikotze has figured out how to be nasty, how to be great. I don't know where he fits in, though, in this crowded title picture at the moment. And certainly it's going to be fun, as it always is, when you have a lot of contenders at the top, to see how the land sort of lays out.

I'm going to go back to you on this, Luke. You know, we didn't learn a lot in the 63 seconds it took him to take down Cub Sw swanson but this is an eye-opening victory how ready do you think he is for the type of top five elite in this you know pretty packed division at the moment that we're seeing i mean uh i saw some kind of tweet saying uh uh chikadze wanted yaya rodriguez and that would be freaking fireworks i mean for insane but how ready is he in your eyes for these guys? I think pretty ready.

You know, if you look at his UFC fights, they started out a little bit like very close to split decisions, although one of them I thought he won outright, shouldn't have been split. But in any case, and then he had two in a row that were just regular unanimous decisions. And then in his last two, granted, I think the one before this was maybe a late replacement but in any case uh he's had finishes so he went from splits to unanimous

to now stoppages and the stoppage he got over Cub Swanson I think I would have two takeaways about this one I do think Giga Chikadze has is now ready for a step up in competition you know making that switch from kickboxing it's kind of hard not just that you have to work on all the forms of your takedown defense, but like you saw in the Curtis Millinder fight, I was arguing he had some issues about making choices that exacerbated his weaknesses versus making choices that limit them. You're seeing Giga Chikadze make choices that limit his weaknesses in addition to then working on them in a direct and open way and that's paying huge dividends because now he's letting his strikes go a little bit more i also think cub swanson certainly you know one of the great action fighters that we've had the pleasure of covering has been here since the blue mat days of wec and is still out here putting on even when he loses

you know his fights are never boring um and i don't think his last couple of wins were in any way accidental but i do think this fight probably represents more of his future than at the ufc level anyway than than the opposite which is to say giga young guy still coming up in the game cub been there kind of done that still good enough to hang on and give the right guy some tough fights. I don't think retirement was the vibe that I got from this BC because he did mount some nice wins previous to this one. But I do think that if you're the UFC matchmakers, I think, and if you're cub too, you probably need to be realistic about what kind of fights you should be in, what kind of fights are winnable, where that puts you, and then what that next, maybe this very last chapter of his career will look like.

So I don't know about you. I didn't get the, oh, this guy's washed and he can never win another fight again vibe. No. But I did get the feeling like, you know, the world is changing underneath you a little bit. And you got to recognize that. Yeah. I mean, I hope he recognizes sort of where he fits in now at this, you know, twilight of his run where, again, he can still be, you know, he's a celebrity gatekeeper. We hate that term because it implies

something negative, but it's not. He's a big-name guy who if you're going to be a real contender, you've got to beat him. And he's beat guys that we thought might have become, or were on their way to becoming contenders. I mean, look, my favorite Cub Swanson fight, the Do-Who Choi fight. I mean, it was insane. Fight of the year.

And it also taught us where, you know, Choi was and where he was going. But I think he benefits from the style of this loss, not just that it was so quick, but when you get hit to the body and get stopped that way, Luke, it's not because you can't absorb strikes anymore. It's because somebody hit you in that bullseye that's there, that's out there. If somebody can find it on you, right? You can end a fight with that. And it just was, you know, it so happened that happened. But I would like to see Cub have a Rich Franklin-type twilight here where, you know, okay, he's going to fight the up-and-comer

who needs the test, but I also like to see him against some other old guys who he can make fun old guy fights with. So maybe that's the direction we go moving forward from here, Luke. And also, you just got to be realistic here too, BC. We talk about it all the time. There was a time in UFC where I did not pay as much attention. Always you got to pay some attention,

but I wasn't quite as focused on youth and how important that was. But now as the sport matures, guys are getting started earlier. They're going to finish earlier you know it's just it's a grind generally I do think it's worth paying attention to now Cubs wants and not completely over the hill 37 and will be 38 till November so it's got a little bit of time left but at 38 at 145 pounds I'm going to keep saying it over and over and over again you know whether

you're Tyra Woodley 39 at 170 or you or obviously 38 for Blachowicz is not nearly the same situation. But at 145 pounds, that's a hard place to be, man. It's just hard. No matter how good you are, no matter what you've done, it's just going to be really difficult to win fights consistently anyway at that time. So I don't think that Cub looked terrible. Gig is amazing. But I do think that figuring out exactly where you are, being honest about it, and what lies ahead,

I do think he has to have that conversation. And a smart guy like Cub probably already has. By the way, he makes great coffee. Who, Cub? Cub. Yeah, no bullshit. They call it Killer Cub Coffee. It's delicious.

It's one of the best celebrity coffees I've ever had. I tried Stipe's Firehouse Coffee, and it's delicious. It's one of the best celebrity coffees I've ever had. I tried Stipe's Firehouse Coffee, and it's fantastic. I know Anthony Johnson, I was with him on the Bellator virtual press conference call offline, and he was like, hey, man, let me get your address. I'll send you my coffee. And I'm like, damn right. In fact, I said, hey, Rumble, are you going to THC infuse that for me? And he said, no, we're not doing that.

How awesome would that be to get a cup of coffee where you can get the high of the caffeine, so to speak, of the benefits from it? Yeah, so I'll try Cubs coffee, no question about it. You took me off my train of thought there. Oh, I got it quickly here, Luke. We've talked in the past because of this recent rise of the caucus region MMA superstar,

and I think we've seen that in boxing in the previous decade where the rise of the Ukrainians and the Kazakhs and the Russians and all that. And we know that there's been eras in the sport, Luke, whether it be the Brazilians, the American wrestlers, where a certain demographic has had a great deal of success. Even though UFC is investing a shit ton of money in China right now to put a performance institute and find great fighters and by the way if if uh if um Zhong Weili is any indication you know that that's a great

investment uh UFC Africa is really the future right I mean they're not even remotely tapped into the type of fighters that they could get from there with a organized structured training program do you see that as the next big boom, like five, ten years from now? Or is it going to be quicker because of the three champions we have at the moment? See, here's the thing. First of all, Ukraine's not part of the Caucasus Mountains, just to be clear about that. But the other part is...

Yeah, it's close enough, Luke. I mean, it's close enough. It's close. It's close. It's on the other side of the Black Sea, but yeah. Here's what I would say. You're right about one thing 100 the athletic potential that is just untapped out of sub-saharan africa or north north africa too it's it's almost comical how much just goes unused and what else could be there. The problem is you got to find a way to make use of it, which is to say the culturally in places like Georgia and Azerbaijan and Armenia and Russia,

blah, blah, blah, those places, they culturally already make a huge priority out of strength sports, out of combat sports. They have already much more facilities to do it they already have a training facilities and culture and coaches they've just got the entire infrastructure in place and the cultural priority to go and produce the kinds of talent you're seeing i'm not going to say that all parts of that area are super rich but they're not nearly the kind of destitute poverty you might see throughout parts of sub-saharan Africa. So it's like, is there plenty of talent in Africa? Yes, but someone has to build the gyms. Someone has to get the trainers.

Someone has to bring in the people to come and train and then produce competitions for them to stay active and then pay purses and blah, blah, blah. There's just so many different pieces of the puzzle that are missing there that is unfortunate because to your point, you just see guys like Francis. You're like francis is obviously quite special there's no doubt about it but there's got to be a lot of other guys who are at least semi close to that you know or in all the other weight classes how do we find and and really tap into that and i don't have a good answer for you

well i think it was you know harold scott howard who once said luke if you build it they will come so if you're coming on then come on already, all right. You know, but you know, Luke, I was thinking about, you know, where, where, where else is there an untapped market down the road? And I'm thinking, look, look where I come from. What if I started my own gym, factory town MMA, and I really looked for down on their luck, ex football players who now work in, like, you know, sanitation and spend their evenings in a dimly lit bar, if I can grab those guys, resurrect them, get them in a gym,

what you don't understand, Luke, because of your privileged upbringing in Old Marietta is that guys like me, okay, from the factory town, there's a resolve there, brother. I grew up in an apartment with a single mom. I don't know what upbringing you're referring to, but I will say this. Factory town MMA will work,

but you've got to get the beefy boys. You've got to get the heavyweights. I'm thinking we could start printing the shirts already for MerchSide 2.0 if that thing ever launches. Yeah. Factory town MMA. gotta i just gotta hire a head instructor luke because i'm gonna handle more of the the motivational side of it but i need an instructor so all right speaking of beefy boys let's get to point number three here if we can so some boxing that happened over the weekend now we kind of panned this fight in terms of like

did it need to happen? And it didn't. But I got to say, BC, in the words of Max Kellerman, that fight was about the best version of itself that it could have been. In fact, Chris Areola knocking down Andy Ruiz. But in the end, Ruiz showing his class, slimmed down about 30 pounds or so from his Anthony Joshua rematch, sort of overweightness. Struggled a little bit early, BC. Two questions for you.

One, how did you score it in the end? How many rounds did you give to Areola? And then two, your biggest takeaway about Andy Ruiz's upside following this competition. Yeah, I got a lot of takeaways. And just first and foremost, I teased it. You heard me on Friday's show in that snippet we played of the Areola interview. We all agreed this shouldn't have been a pay-per-view, but it did have potential to kind of shine.

And look, top to bottom, this whole card was overachieved. It was pretty damn good. It just wasn't a pay-per-view. And I thought Lou DiBella summed it up great, the boxing promoter on Twitter, when he said this fight could have been the perfect infomercial for Andy Ruiz's future and the future of him fighting Wilder and Luis Ortiz had it been on regular Fox. Now, it wasn't another conversation for another day here, Luke. But at the end of the day, look, this was heavyweight boxing.

We did not expect Areola at 40 to come in this level of shape, the best shape of his career in what was really, you know, in theory, his last chance, although I've covered a few of his last chances in the in the past luke he's a guy that's found a way to somehow linger and keep reinventing himself but you saw ruiz who was you know come shed he was 310 pounds to start this training camp he cut down to 258 he looked in great shape and then he gets knocked down early dude that's heavyweight boxing. This was fun theater. I think a lot of people, though, saw that, saw him get rocked in the third round,

and then sort of did what they normally do. And this is my problem, not with the boxing scoring system, but with how boxing fans, sometimes even hardcore boxing fans, view the scoring system, which means if you're having a beer at home, you're probably not scoring round by round on the 10-point must system. You're probably doing a general scoring in your head of what you saw. And what we saw over 12 rounds in this fight was an Areola who was a threat the whole 12, and he was competitive, and he was tough as nails.

But it doesn't mean he was winning rounds. I scored this fight 11 rounds to one. I gave Areola round two in which he dropped him, and you know what? In round three, Areola rocked Ruiz early, but Ruiz, to his credit, reset, boxed for the final two minutes, and actually hurt Areola in the final 10 seconds, which was enough to give him the edge in a close round.

From there on out, Luke, every round became more about Ruiz, who I thought in his first fight under Eddie Reynoso and Team Canelo, boxed beautifully, went to the body. I loved his jab. I loved his combinations. I love that in the championship rounds, you saw Andrew Ruiz actually get busier, actually sit down on his power shots more. So the three judges, two of them had it 10 rounds to two. One of them had it 10 rounds to two. One of them had it 11 rounds to one. And I know Areola went nuts with that. And we'll get to that later and have you seen the shit.

But I think even on the broadcast, Sean Porter, who I love, you know that, him and Lennox Lewis, I don't think they were scoring round by round. So they were playing up more on the broadcast that Areola was in this fight. And Luke, the scores don't always tell you the story of the fight remember when i got hung over the fire because i scored thurman pacquiao 115 113 for thurman seven to five again because of the 10 point must system yes when you watch that fight

it pacquiao won the fight if we were scoring in the one championship way of who won the fight pacquiao scored the knockdown he he rocked Thurman a couple times, right? He won that fight. But there's a scoring system involved. So even though this fight was fun, was competitive, you can still lose 11 rounds to one in a competitive fight because somebody's got to win the round on a 10-point must system and Areola for as patient and poised.

Look, I thought he was going to walk in there and get knocked out. As patient and poised as he was with Joe Goosen in his corner for the first time, he did not throw enough punches. And Ruiz was the better boxer, had the speed advantage, and that was enough to make Areola be too selective at the end of the day. So what does this do for Ruiz? I have a major problem with Fox's broadcast. How the hell did they not bring up Deontay Wilder's name in that post-interview?

How do you not have Deontay Wilder present? How are you not connecting the dots and getting us excited? I know Luis Ortiz was in the crowd. Hold on, just as a, just as a, just to interject here very, very, very quickly. Isn't Deontay Wilder a PBC fighter like Andy Ruiz? Yes, and originally this pay-per-view was supposed to have Deontay Wilder, a PBC fighter like Andy Ruiz? Yes, and originally this pay-per-view was supposed to have Deontay Wilder on it against former champion Charles Martin in the main event with this Ruiz-Ariola fight in the co-main event,

which, by the way, would have been a pretty good, you know, a decent pay-per-view, and it would have set the, you know, the future matchup. I know Luis Ortiz, the Cuban heavyweight who fought Wilder twice, he was in the crowd, He claims he wants next. Look, if Ruiz and Ortiz is next, I don't have a problem with that. But how do you not mention it? And how, if you're the Fox broadcast team, why are you even bringing up a rematch? I wanted to, like, jump through the screen and shake them.

We don't need a rematch. What Ruiz proved to me is he's back. It doesn't mean he'll never be vulnerable. I mean, I tweeted out, Luke, that the fight to make is Andy Ruiz versus Deontay Wilder and that it's a real pay-per-view and that it'll be tremendous theater and I got about 400 responses on Twitter of people being like,

KO1 Wilder. Ruiz can't take a punch. Didn't you see him in there? Are we not watching the same broadcast here, people? Alright? I know people like to have a few drinks while they watch fights. Andy Ruiz is back. He's a beautiful boxer. But this is heavyweight boxing.

You can get caught. The thing about Ruiz that is great is he's dangerous when he's hurt, just like the first Joshua fight. And as long as he's not eating pizza and wings for four months before a training camp, like he did in the Saudi Arabia rematch with AJ, he is a viable heavyweight championship contender. And I think he's a breath of fresh air to this division. Mexican-American, brings a big fan base, and he makes fun fights. This was a fun fight on Saturday. Luke, talk me off the ledge. He's a

player now. He's where he needs to be physically. And I think style-wise, if he relies on the boxing, he can still get knockdowns. But he's a very skilled fighter in there. I mean, I'm mostly in agreement. I'm slightly less enthusiastic, which is to say I watched the fight and I thought that I wasn't scoring round by round. So I don't have a strong take in that sense. Areola was better. He only got, you know, two, three judges or two, three rounds on some of the judges' scorecards.

But I would say this. For sure, Ruiz was the rightful winner I mean by a million miles and he definitely looked better than he had um in the well I won't say the first AJ fight but certainly the second AJ fight I don't know that he came as far as I was necessarily expecting I will say that but the way I think that people are misreading the Wilder fight is like, yes, does Wilder have the kind of power to sit any heavyweight down with a single shot? Yes, he does. He absolutely does have that. And he has that late in a fight, which we've seen. And so for those reasons, he is quite dangerous. But dude, I mean, they're very different fighters in very different sports, in very different weight classes. But if I could try to explain

Andy Ruiz just a little bit from what I've seen to MMA fans, he's got a little Eddie Alvarez in him. He might get dropped early. And I know Eddie lost his last fight, I understand. But like, even in that one, he got dropped, figured out a way, came back, and had two rounds that I thought he won.

Now, one doesn't score it that way, but you know, you get the idea. He has resolve in moments of peril that a lot of guys don't. Dude, Andy Ru't score it that way, but you get the idea. He has resolve in moments of peril that a lot of guys don't. Dude, Andy Ruiz is just like that, and he's got big combinations. And a guy like Deontay Wilder, he's not going to get better as a boxer getting rid of people in his camp that made him as good as he could be. It's not going to happen. So if you want to favor Wilder to win, great. You think Wilder's going to win overall? No problem.

But the idea that Andy Ruiz wouldn't be a very dangerous threat to him, I think that's silly. I think he absolutely would be. And Wilder, if he doesn't put him away early, I mean, again, his power does carry late, but you could just see the fast combinations giving Wilder fits if he can get inside that range. I would love to see that fight.

And, you know, the punch that knocked Ruiz down, let's give Areola credit. That was a short right counter right hand. Hard shot. And, look, this was the best version of Areola ever. A guy I didn't think was possible to recreate at 40. I didn't think this guy existed anymore. Yeah.

I mean, you know, it seems that Joe Goosen is the right trainer for him. And look, this is great for heavyweight boxing because I don't think Ruiz is ever going to be as good or can be as good as the first Joshua fight. It was just the perfect storm, perfect night. He got up off the canvas and destroyed AJ. But I think Ruiz is, there's a reason why he was a hot prospect. People think Andy Ruiz came out of the steeliz, like, came out of the steel mill.

Like, he came out of factory town MMA and just stumbled into the heavyweight championship. Top rank, had him under contract for years. He was just a guy who couldn't put it together, couldn't get in the right shape. Well, again, he could not be in a better spot than Team Canelo. Training alongside Canelo, has a defensive, boxing-minded trainer in Eddie Reynoso. We're going to find out how good he can be. Tyson Fury's length is probably going to be a problem for him.

But in a trilogy against Joshua, in a fight with Deontay Wilder, in a fight with Luis Ortiz, I think Ruiz is live in those fights. So, you know, this is good for the heavyweight division in a lot of ways. But, God, what the hell? Are we talking about a rematch with these two? Stop the madness here, all right? Come on. Seriously.

Point number four. Point number four. Let's get back to MMA, and we'll be dealing with this later on this week, BC. Anthony Rumble Johnson will fight at Bellator 258, BC, because they did find a last-minute replacement. All right, let's get into this. What do you make of the replacement? What do you make of the replacement?

What do you make of the fight? You were the one that broke the news initially that Yoel was out, which is terrible. But Rumble is still in here, which by the way, if Rumble had beaten Romero, it doesn't undo all of what the tournament was going to be anyway. Of course, losing Romero is terrible,

but it's not catastrophic if Rumble was able to stay in the tournament It looks like he will be Well not only in the tournament But for Bellator to get him to stay on this card I thought was a big move 258 is a sneaky Great card for Friday night

Bellator Showtime 9pm Eastern Am I paid to say that? Well maybe the 9pm Eastern part But not that it's a sneaky good ass fight card I mean you got MVP in there against Derrick Anderson. You got Patrycki Pitbull trying to get a title shot. There's a lot of good things going on, but I think you really needed Rumble. And I don't think that we're going to be able to get over the lament of not having Rumble Romero in this tournament.

I mean, it just brought a lot of extra stature and eyes. But Rumble staying in is very key. And I'm interested to see who this Jose Augusto is from Brazil and how good he is. Now, he did make his Bellator debut April 2nd, Luke, and won a first-round submission. He's won five in a row. He started off his career 2-2. But he's won five in a row since joining Team Pitbull. And that's the key part.

He's with Patricio and Patrici in Brazil. There's a savagery in that camp that we know. It's very elite-level MMA, and here's a guy who has confidence. He answered the phone when they called, and we do have to remember, do I think he's Daniel Cormier and waiting and going to win this whole tournament? Probably not. But there's still questions about Anthony Rumble Johnson. That can only be answered in a real fight with the four-year layoff. That's the intrigue. We can't

wait to see. So if you got at least somebody who's credible, who's hungry, who wants to go in there and find that out. We know that Augusto has a ground game, has a submission game, Luke. We know that that is probably the weakness of Rumble Johnson if you're going to get underneath that power and try to expose him. So I am looking forward to this matchup. No, it's not Rumble Romero. I'm not trying to sell you that this Brazilian guy is the next, you know, little nog or middle nog for all that. But, Luke, I'm glad that we're going to get some Rumble action on Friday

because we need to see where he's at. And if he wins, him and Nemkov is going to be a fight. Like, that is going to be something we are going to be rightfully excited about and the fact that Bellator still has the chance to make Rumble Romero maybe later this year or the year after or how about as soon as we possibly freaking can.

I mean, there's a silver lining at least on this cloud. I'm not trying to, you know, put all, you know, sweeten it up completely. Losing Rumble Romero, it still hurts. It's still real to me, damn it. But I'm glad he's staying on the card. Yeah, I mean, the good news is, there's still a question whether the opponent is Romero, whether the opponent is you or me or Azevedo, whoever it is, there's a question about where it is, what does Rumble look like now? I mean, we saw the pictures, Mike Baum went down to Sanford MMA. Rumble appears to be in tremendous physical condition,

but he's got to make weight. That's not a given necessarily. I mean, it should be fine, but okay, let's see how he looks when he makes weight and if he does make weight. Now, Azevedo does have two losses, but they were from like 2014 and 2012, 2013. He's taken a lot of time off in his career,

and he kind of picked it back up around 2019 where he fought twice, and then twice in 2021, or this will be a second in 2021 already. So, you know, whatever losses he has was from a time in his career when he wasn't nearly as well-trained. I tend to think that this isn't a fight Rumble should lose, but we don't exactly know what Rumble we're going to get here. It could be the Rumble that, you know, flattened DC. It could be the one that, you know, submitted to him minutes later. So I'm curious to see that part as well. I do think you're right. The fact that this guy is sort of submission oriented makes it kind of interesting, but there's just no denying. I mean, we now have had additional reports, by the way,

about Romero. It could be some kind of eye issue. You'll recall when they fought Israel Adesanya, went on a post-fight long rant about how he saw something wrong with Romero's eye and that he couldn't believe he got it past the doctors. Well, this time he didn't. This time he didn't. So I'm really hopeful that whatever the issue is, they can get it rectified and not just make Romero rumble again, but get Romero into that Bellator mix. He's an exciting campus fighter. That's exactly what Bellator needs right at this moment. And so I'm curious about Friday,

but also curious about all the stuff that could come after that. And they did get Lorenz Larkin, an opponent, so he'll stay on this card, which is good. But Luke, I think it's, you know, we're going to ask the right questions this week. We're there to cover this fight card. I want to find out, you know,

was this eye injury or whatever it is known about given the comments from Adesanya? Did the UFC cut Romero in part because of this? I mean, these are questions that are, you know, I want to get from Scott Coker himself and figure it out. Because, Luke, I mentioned Wednesday's virtual press conference last week that Romero was at the doctor's. He was actually at the eye doctor's sitting on the exam table doing the media interviews. So certainly it's an interesting turn of events. I hope for UL's case, whatever it is, you know, he can get it addressed and we can get him back in there.

Because I know he's 43, but he ain't a real 43, Luke, okay? I mean, I'm going to be 43 in July. I'm in much different shape than this man, okay? Fair enough. That's true. But I will say this, just for folks on the Bellator side of things, you know, Bellator undercards, historically, we've talked about this.

They've just been like donks from regional talent that they just sign and throw in the undercard because they don't really care. They're trying to change that. It looks at least a little bit in the Showtime era. I want to ask Scott Coker more about this because they do look pretty improved. So on this prelim card, BC, you mentioned it.

Lorenz Larkin, boy, has it been quiet in the world of Lorenz Larkin recently. And he's taken on the former champ, Rafael Carvalho. Patchy Mix was supposed to take on, I think, James Gallagher. He fell off, so he's taking on Albert Morales. But Patchy Mix still on the card. Logan Storley, who gave Amosov everything he could handle and then some. Maybe should have won.

He's back on this card. Goy have won. He's back on this card. Goyito, Eric Perez, is on this card. Henry Corrales is on this card. The guy who's the D2 wrestling champ, I think his name is Ralfion Stotz. He trains out of Duke Rufus. He's on this card. So there's a lot of up and down on the prelim card,

some good-ass fights. It'd be amazing if we could do like a companion call you know how cool that would be bc i'm just throwing it out there maybe we could talk to our people maybe they'll say well we got to get through this merch hurdle first but i'll say this luke that uh again mvp derrick anderson and and patricki versus peter queely of sbg those are those are some interesting fights so i'm looking forward to it uh the man who rumbles fighting luke uh look brazilian people tend to have a lot of names. That's not insensitive of me.

No, Latin people generally. Anybody, especially the Catholic ones, bro, they got a million names. Well, his nickname is Gugu. It's Juan Augusto Acevedo, but it looks like Wikipedia is just calling him Juan Augusto. But you know, Bellator, sometimes they just call people by their nickname.

We might just call this guy Gugu all night. I don't know. We'll see what happens. Maybe rumble and turn him into G Goo all night. I don't know. We'll see what happens. Maybe Rumble will turn him into Goo Goo Eyes, Luke. We'll see. We'll see what happens. We will see what happens. I'm sure he's a good fighter.

All right. Let's go to this last but not least topic, BC. Well, we are here. It is now Canelo Fight Week, ladies and gentlemen. He takes on Billy Joe Saunders. Now, we'll have a lot more coming up on this. In fact, BC, if I'm not wrong, I know you have an interview with Canelo. I believe you have one with Billy Joe Saunders this week as well.

So keep it locked to MK because BC is going to get you ready by talking to those two main event competitors. A lot of different storylines for this one, BC. I'll tell you mine first. I'd love to react to it if you would. Sure. And then tell me what you've got in your mind. So if I had to ask you what the biggest storyline is here's one i'm paying attention to everyone is telling me and again i have a lot of learning to do so everyone is telling me that billy joe saunders

is a is a very talented fighter which that i know and is a real threat to canelo which i take seriously enough his ability to think that canelo is going to have to work for it but i also think canelo is probably a little bit better than they imagine. Here's my question about this fight. Let's imagine we're overestimating Billy Joe Saunders, which we could be wrong to do. But for the sake of argument, let's say Canelo goes in there and does to him what he did to Callum Smith. Just kind of makes, you know,

I'm up here, you're down there kind of scenario. I don't know what the next fight would be where you would have a scenario where you could convince me the fighter had a chance you can convince me right now billy joe saunders has a chance maybe caleb plant although i don't really think so with him either but let's say if dude if canelo runs over billy joe saunders if how are you going to convince people that there's anyone left that's a real challenge for him unless he goes to 175 i'll convince you can i excuse me professor uh professor salt and pepper uh so here's a little bit of news that sprinkled in when canelo did a media day in the gym the other day

eddie reynoso who of course is canelo's trainer and i think his co-manager uh they kind of said the same thing luke of if he unifies all titles, becomes the undisputed champion at 168, which is his plan. And by the way, again, when we talked on Friday about that Graham Benzinger interview with Canelo, the fact that he's like, the best thing about being a free agent is I could fight as much as I want to. Canelo's trying to fight four times this year, plus that fight in December. So it's like, I mean, it's insane.

If he gets all four belts, you know what Eddie Reynoso said, Luke? Let's go up to 175 and fight better, B. And that is in complete contrast, of course, to the past, about six months ago, when Canelo said, Eddie Reynoso told me, we're not going near that guy,

I give away too many advantages, but I think it's the combination of Canelo realizing he's the best fighter in the sport, and he wants to leave as big as a freaking imprint as he possibly can in terms of his greatness. Nobody's doing that anymore in boxing. We've got boxing businessmen who want to win titles and become draws, so then they can just keep taking in the money for being a draw. And I'm not here to criticize them.

Remember those guys in the 80s and 90s, Luke, that all they wanted to do was be great? Takes a physical toll on you. So I get that there's a balance involved. But the fact that Canelo is going out of his frigging way to prove to you how great he is, to me, that's the storyline of the fight. I also think Jermall Charlo, when he moves up to 168, is going to be a very, very tough challenge because you don't often see Canelo fight guys with that combination of foot speed and power because there just aren't a ton out there on that super, super elite level who can also box. So there are some challenges out there, but to hear that they're willing, you know, we won a title at 75 before, maybe it's because Better Beef didn't

look like a million bucks in his comeback from that long layoff. Maybe Betterbeave is pushing 36, right? So I get that, but this is all really good news. So here's the deal on Saunders. Luke, do you get the same DM slides that I get, which is from people going, I've been following Luke's breakdowns of MMA for years. Nobody outside of Dan Hardy has a technical grasp of what's going on. How does he not realize that Billy Joe Saunders is a threat in this fight? How is Luke not up to speed on BJS like he needs to be to realize that from a technical standpoint, this Canelo fight is really freaking interesting? I'll answer it for you, Luke, okay? Because Billy Joe Saunders doesn't always show up, and that's been the problem. He's a hard guy to negotiate with. He's a trash talker. He's a hard guy to negotiate with.

He's a trash talker. He's a lot of different things, but he'll play down to the level of his opponent when there is not a large threat there. Not the only fighter to ever do that, but there have been some fights. You want to go back and watch the Chris Eubank Jr. fight. You want to watch the David Lemieux fight. There have been fights where the Andy Lee fight, where actually Saunders got, where Saunders showed a lot of power that we didn't know he had. But the thing about Saunders that is great is he's different. He's unique. So my biggest storyline entering this fight is that this is a potential trap fight and always has been for Canelo. I know there's the argument, and it's a real one, that who the hell is ever going to win a decision over Canelo Alvarez in these United States?

In Vegas or Texas or wherever. And this one's in Florida, by the way. And it's a great question, right? But Billy Joe Saunders can stall. He can hold the ball. He can do some of these, sometimes we call it negative fighting. But he can do it in a way that scores and that controls the fights. He throws looping punches.

He's a southpaw. He can crouch at the waist and really fight a weird crab style. He knows how to control distance. He'll hold. He'll do some shitty stuff that maybe won't be the most entertaining, but he's going to make this hard. And again, when you're somebody of Canelo's level of fame, you don't need to go out of your way to be the undisputed champion.

There's very few undisputed champions in boxing in the four belt era. It's really hard to do. The sanctioning bodies don't make it easy. But Canelo is like going out of his way to do that. That's the storyline of this fight, Luke, that if Billy Joe Saunders comes in and there's no reason why he shouldn't come in the very best of himself, this is a very interesting fight on paper. And for anyone listening that's a real boxing fan, they remember Arislandi Lara. That was a very interesting fight on paper. I thought Lara edged him. It was very close when they went to the cards. This is just like that. Saunders can do things in there that very few people can, and he's going to really tax the brain of Canelo and

to me that's really interesting I'd rather see that than him go fight somewhat basic UK guy now Calum Smith it's it's rude to call him somewhat basic UK guy that's a little that's a little unfair against Canelo he kind of looked like somewhat basic UK guy so did Rocky Fielding right so did Liam Smith but this but this is a little bit different cat here in BJS, right? He's got that gypsy blood, man. He's a wild dude, but this could be a fun fight on Saturday. I tend to think it will be competitive

in spots, but I also tend to think that when it's over, Canelo's going to put it on him. But, you know, we'll see. Certainly you guys know more about boxing and Billy Joe Saunders than I do, and I certainly have to respect that as well. Okay. Fun weekend of fights coming up.

Fun weekend that just passed. We've been talking to each other and asking us questions. Now it's time for you to ask us questions. It's time for DMs from dogs. Ben, chance. All right. We always put up a post on Instagram every Sunday asking for your questions. You guys fill it up.

The producers pick them, and then they send them to us. They kind of got to this one already, BC, so we'll go first. Is Yuri Prochocka what we thought and what we hoped Johnny Walker was going to be? This is from Muhammer8. Muhammer, however you want to say it. The Johnny Walker comparison to me is a little you know i understand it i understand it but it's not quite right because he was often reacting to pressure in certain ways prohachka is an absolute in your face i'm going to just force the fight on you that's a little more tony ferguson than and again the way he gets hit is just so just

engage your pre-information so you know uh Walker's not as brutal, not as intentionally brutal. Walker's accidentally brutal. And what I mean by that is he's just a freak, freaking next-level athlete who will try crazy shit, and he went on that run there where everything he tried was landing within 60 seconds. So, you know, I've clowned on walker for being a clown i think some i think that's distracted from his actual ability in the same way michelle pedeta did until he sort

of figured it out and again there's still time for walker to figure out but they are very different i mean prohatsuka is a old school martial arts warrior who's coming in there to take your soul if you'll let him, Luke, but don't you let him, bro. Wow. Wow. All right. From Raucous Bacchus. Would you rather, and why, attend Joshua Fabia's School of Self-Awareness for a full term or have Tito Ortiz serve as your mayor pro tem for a full term?

Man, fuck having Tito Ortiz having a say over anything when it comes to governance. That guy can't even govern a sentence. Gotta be, I would go and take Joshua Fabio's School of Self-Awareness because people there at least look in shape. I'll say that for them. You might learn a couple of things along the way. Certainly you get an inside look into weirdness. That would be kind of interesting ortiz is just boring you know borderline malfeasance and total ignorance about the

world there's nothing fun about that yeah shout out to people like borisina depot who like do god's work and they'll like sit through these like town meetings over there in huntington beach and just pull out all the ridiculous things that happen with Tito. I mean, it's, it's, it's wild. Yeah. This, this question sucks. They're both pretty shitty, but I think I'd go through Tito Ortiz for the shits and giggles. Well, if he was your mayor of your time, I mean, that could, God, that could really be destructive. I mean, that could really be bad for your town. Yeah. If something happens and then they push this fool into the mayor role. Yeah. i might have to go fabia here's what's interesting though look i i know that you know we we spent a lot of time on this on friday

but you saw more videos came out on diego sanchez's ig um i mean they could fabia and diego whoever's running that could not be trying to bury themselves worse but it seems pretty obvious from that phone call they leaked with uh sean shelby and in the ufc legal that and hunter campbell yeah yeah that they're mounting you know some type of lawsuit so i feel like you will never hear fabia's name again like he'll be scraped from the record of ufc history you'll never see a fighter trained by him i like ufc will just put on the full on get away from us we know that your angle is litigious. Just get the hell away from us.

So, you know, I don't know what that means for Diego's future. But did you hear, Luke, that because we said on the broadcast, we said on our show on Friday when we showed that, you know, free at last IG post that he added the late Johnny Tapia's wife. And there's some people saying that Diego Sanchez is being tabbed to play Johnny Tapia in an upcoming movie. And if you don't know tapia he's from new mexico he passed away but he was a fun and ferocious boxer in the small weight divisions had some incredible uh fights uh showtime did a documentary on him that was fantastic and uh can diego sanchez act and

play that role i don't think so maybe um i will say i heard that video he put out the third one where they if you guys didn't hear it basically it's uh joshua fabia having a call with sean shelby briefly but mostly hunter campbell who's sort of like this high level attorney who serves a variety of functions inside the organization and basically like they called it like diego was like oh here's a smoking gun if you listen to the call hunter campbell and sean shelby come off totally reasonable like like absolutely doing their due diligence staying in compliance with the laws staying in compliance with company values quite frankly staying in compliance with athlete health and safety,

and doing nothing else. Like, there's just one comment that's not rude, but it's kind of, like, blunt, where, you know, Hunter Campbell says we don't want someone who has, you know, who's, like, drooling on himself later to be like, oh, we had a problem and UFC ignored it. You know, that's a little bit blunt to hear someone say about a fighter,

but he's not wrong. Like, I listen to the call, I'm like, yeah, if you're in that role that those two guys are in you do exactly what they did and then they published it being like smoking gun i'm like i don't know what attorney you're gonna find that's gonna take this case that has any chance of winning but good luck to you i guess and tell me dead wrong myself the johnny tapia doc was on hbo not showtime and we don't we don't talk about that network on here, apparently, Luke. So I'm dead wrong. They don't do boxing anymore.

All right. From T. Elliott. After seeing Dom Reyes lose twice in a row, do you think Jon Jones would have suffered a loss, I think three in a row, really. Or no, two in a row, sorry. In the light heavyweight division by now, if he had stayed active there.

I got to tell you, BC, Jon Jones has already lost. He did not win that Dominic Reyes fight. The only reason he won is because of the rules in Texas. Fact. He lost three of those five rounds. There's not a doubt in my mind. And yes, to answer the question,

I do think he would have lost. I don't know. And again, dude, I've been a bigger Jon Jones believer in any capacity than most of my brethren. I've spent a long time studying him I I'm not I don't know what the answer is BC I'm telling you flat out I don't know what the answer is but I'm not automatically convinced that he's going to go to heavyweight

and run over everybody I mean he might but I need to see it to believe it first it's amazing the grace that you have for him despite him openly sending you to hell i wish you had that same grace for you on a champion and you know others luke but that's what she did was way worse anyway uh that i was thinking about that in the shower yesterday of all places luke uh that you know john got out at the right time now i say that because people are getting these nasty knockouts and you know uh reyes and tiago santos who pushed John to the limit and may have beaten him in front of her eyes, have lost since then and lost multiple times or whatever. But, you know, that's also playing MMA math. That was before the injury for Mejeta.

So we probably got the very best peak version of Mejeta. And for Dom Reyes, that was the undefeated, never been handled, you know, peak version who didn't go on to lose three in a row right so you can't fully do mma math but yet at the same time seeing what prohotska did john got out at the right time and i and like you said i still don't know i've been the most hardcore believer in john jones as a heavyweight and i still want to see him and i still believe he can beat anybody not named in ghanu but we got see it man we gotta see it so i can't wait to see it that's it that's uh so from shank 13 kind of canelo recently stated that if both he and mayweather fought each other in their primes mayweather wouldn't have a chance and wouldn't want anything

to do with him do you agree i kind of do it's an interesting question here now it's a little bit hard though because they fought at a catch weight of 152 pounds in 2013 canelo cut down two pounds to do it mayweather came in at 151 and a half which was the highest weight he ever weighed in at canelo's prime in reality luke is probably the middleweight run he had the two fights with glovkin even though i kind of thought he lost both, but that's another topic for another day. You could even argue that who he is right now at 168 is the fully evolved prime version of Canelo Alvarez. Canelo's not, Floyd's not fighting those guys at 160 or 168, right? So, you know, Canelo went on after that loss to Floyd to have a very good run at 154 and what we called Canelo weight.

He would fight people at 155 pounds for no reason, right? He fought Cotto there. He did a lot of that. I don't think the best version I've seen of Canelo at 154 or 155 can beat Floyd. But to his point, the fighter he has evolved into right now, if they somehow met in a magical middleweight, weight in the middle where it made sense, I still have to see it. I don't know. It's hard, Luke, because Floyd was selective in his matchmaking. He fought guys at key times. You know, there's a lot of guys, Shane Mosley, Oscar De La Hoya, who will tell you, oh man, you know, I pushed him to the limit

when I was old. Imagine if I fought him in my prime. And some guys, you can believe it. I'll take prime Oscar De La Hoya from welterweight from 1999 before he lost to Trinidad. I think he beats prime welterweight Mayweather. Just my two cents there. You know, I don't know if prime Shane Mosley at lightweight, where he was one of the best lightweights of all time, if he can beat prime lightweight Mayweather. I'd love to see that happen. I don't know if Canelo can here, but at the very least, you can admit and agree that although Canelo, I thought, lost all 12 rounds against Mayweather and really had a shitty game plan.

Hey, CJ Ross, you know that's not true. Floyd caught him at the damn right time. He was a little bit too young, naive, and unseasoned. He made him come down two pounds, and to Floyd's credit, you could argue that's the best performance of his career. We always give that nod to Floyd dismantling Diego Corrales or when he came back from retirement to beat Marquez it just mopped the floor with him but that Canelo fight I mean I'll put that version

look so Luke the version of Floyd from the Canelo fight I still might like him to beat the best version of Canelo and that's not that's not me taking shots. It just is what it is. Floyd's an equalizer. He's a stopper. He takes what you do best and takes it away from you, right? I think the best argument for Canelo in this case is that Floyd, you know, Floyd does everything intentionally, virtually everything intentionally. Like, if he makes a call about something it is

something he has thought about for quite a long time and you know if he pulls the trigger on it he likes his chances to do quite well you're like well everyone's like that but yeah but Floyd's really good at it Floyd's really good at getting that calculus very correct you know he just doesn't make a lot of mistakes not merely in the ring but in all the things that happened before getting to the ring as it relates to fighting. So in that sense, the fact that he got Canelo pre-prime, it's like the best argument for Canelo is that Floyd knew that was his window. After that, maybe Floyd could have won. I'm not saying he couldn't have won. It's a different fight. It's a very different fight at that point, if you could even find the weights to get them there at the same time. By the interest by the way i saw another interview

with floyd over the weekend this is like the third one i've seen like this where people keep asking him like who was like the toughest fighter you ever faced or toughest moments he keeps going back to emmanuel august always always yes always goes back to he gives that guy a lot of credit it's kind of funny that was sort of prime drunken master Augustus. I think that aired on, remember when HBO did that spinoff boxing series called KO Nation where they had Ed Lover as the host? Yes, I do actually remember that, yes.

They had a DJ on set. You know, that was a tough fight because Augustus was kind of fighting dirty. He was doing the weird movement. Yeah, that's an interesting fight to revisit for Floyd. Yeah, but, you know, Floyd lost the first fight to Jose Luis Castillo. Dude, are we going to do a resume review for Floyd before the Logan fight for Showtime? No, you can't.

Look, as much as I love the curse, and look, I want to challenge the curse. In fact, Raven, right? WCW, ECW sensation Raven DM'd me and said, to prove if the curse is real or not, you and Luke need to do it on Ingano in his next fight. Just do it. Prove it. It's too early for him.

It's too early. It might be. It might be too early for him. But you can't try that on. No, you can't. That's just. I think we need to do that. A Floyd resume review before the Logan Paul fight.

Well, he's going to end up pulling out of the fight. He's going to get COVID or something and pull out of the fight if that happens right he might he might uh all right last but not least on this with both 145 this is from tony g 8305 with both 145 and 155 title fights coming up soon which pairing would you prefer to see square off if a champ champ fight were to take place? They misspelled it. So Volkanovski versus Chandler or Ortega versus Dobronks. Which one would you rather see? God, just a little bit on the record here. Can I go on the record?

I mean, I love Dobronks versus Chandler. They're both amazing. The fact that this is a title fight and Poirier isn't in this, even though he presumably had the choice, it's not a real title. I mean, it's shameful. It sucks. So now we're already talking about champ-champing him. I didn't think Cejudo, who went on to prove to me how great he was, when Cejudo got a chance to be a champ-champ, I'm like, you kidding me?

We're giving this guy the chance right now? I mean, he doesn't even, you know. So can we slow down with this? But which matchup would I like better? Volkanov chandler well well no i'm going ortega do bronx they can both strike their ass off and on the mat it would be if they got it there it would be very interesting to see i guess i like the style contrast of chandler's being a slugger and volkanovski being a guy who can play chess and and, you know, matador you. But yeah, you can't lose with either.

But I think you can lose with challenge. Luke, are you secretly hoping? No, I can't say that out loud because we don't actually want it to happen. But are you secretly hoping someone falls out so Chandler versus Dobronks doesn't happen for the title and instead... No, because on some level, that fight is still tremendous. I mean, whether it should be for the title, whether it is for the title, forget all that. Is that a sick

fight? It's a sick fight. Am I overly romanticizing the meaning of the title here? I just feel like Paulyway should be fighting for it, but not against Conor, so maybe I should shut up. Because if you're telling me Conor dusts in threes for the title, I'm like, really? You know, so maybe I can't be pleased with it. Jordan Breen was

making a point on Twitter over the weekend about light heavyweight, which is that you might find there's some parody at the top, and then the title kind of changes hands. Maybe Blachowicz holds it for a little while, and then maybe Glover takes it. Then maybe Prochocka takes it from him, and then maybe Rakic takes it from him. And you know, you always want one star if you're the UFC in a division that you can promote as like the guy. But if you're the fans having that

uneasiness it creates intrigue it's kind of fun it's like a hot potato it's you're curious to see where it all ends up so you could get something kind of similar at lightweight while we're waiting for poirier and mcgregor to do their business all right all right all right uh sir it's time for your shit let's see i'm trying to get you out of here in time to get on an airplane luke so here's what we do we scour the globe every Monday for the good and bad, the highs and lows. All that, and then some tall, pale, and handsome. It's your boy, BC,

presenting the shit for the week. And have you seen the shit? Do we have a... Oh, yes, we do. Here we are. Oh, God. Ow. Ow. Luke, let's start on the opening fight of UFC Fight Night Vegas. Did you see this slam, slam when the boys were boys

as Felipe Colares picked up Luke Sanders and Frank Trigg'd his ass, Luke? Yeah. Yeah, that's Matt Hughes, Frank Trigg, number two, right there. But it didn't slam against the ground. It slammed against the fence, Luke. Yeah, this is, this is this is wow you know mr sanders got to work on his breakfalls there was some torque on that shit so the problem here for luke sanders who i love cool hand luke he falls to just three and five in the ufc luke i don't know if his

days are numbered but let's not forget he did bang wwe star becky lynch in 2018. Good for him. And also, you know, for a guy who's 3-5, I mean, you should watch this guy fight. Like, he's very talented. It tells you how hard it is to succeed in MMA. It really is. It really is. Let's keep on going. This is from Friday's UFC weigh-in, the Incredible Hulk himself, Ayan Kutelaba.

Luke, did you like this movie pulled on Dustin Jacoby? Yeah, that was weird. It's like like come kiss me motherfucker hey hey tooey it's it's me it's hardy yeah i got the shoe ready let's bang by the way dana white all over sean shelby for like you know you know jeremy stevens is a savage you got to get in the middle how do you not know that with ion kute labba i think he ultimately admitted he fucked this one up yes but it's like dude Kute Laba does this literally every time. Every time he does some weird-ass shit.

Here he is trying to kiss Dustin Jacoby, I guess. I don't know what the fuck that was. It was a fun fight, by the way, Luke. I know it was a draw. But Kute Laba's 10-8 first round, which not every judge gave him 10-8, it was dominant early. Dominant. Yeah, he kind of stuck it to him early.

But Jacoby's improved, man. He's a force to be reckoned with. I like what he's doing these days. All right, PBC on Fox, pay-per-view from Carson, California. This is deep on the undercard. Look at this brawl between Adrian Granados in the black and Jose Sanchez. They went at it for eight rounds. It's a majority draw in the end, Luke, but good action here.

Ooh. Bro, they're just swinging. No footwork. Granados, a heavy favorite, Luke. He settles for a draw. Unfortunately, this was un-televised on the deep undercard. Granados just fought like Danny Garcia and all these big-name guys recently.

He's getting tuned up here. Luke, there's a lot of rumors of this lennox lewis mike tyson old guy fight that you refuse to let me put in the rundown but did you see the inside of lennox lewis's sport coat here as brian kenny teed him up a little throwback to 2002 lennox tyson from the pyramid in memphis that's pretty cool i mean could his shirt be more untucked? What are we doing here? Wow, look at you getting all on Lennox. Hey, remember that time last week when I was like, look, this needs to be in the rundown. This is interesting. In fact,

I think Lennox mentioned on Morning Combat that it's going to happen. You were like, I don't care about that shit. Dude, a TMZ vulture got in Tyson's face asking him nonsense. And Tyson responded with something that could be true but also appeared to be nonsense when it becomes you know a little bit more than nonsense

we can talk about it okay also on this undercard uh former 154 unified champ erislandy lara moved up to middleweight and he took on poor thomas cornLamanna. Luke, boxing fans that know, know how criminal this matchmaking was, and it played out K-O-1. What's even worse than the matchmaking is that they put a belt on the line. It's like a junior, vacant, interim WBA middleweight title. And even Jimmy Lennon announced it as the WBA championship of the world. I'm glad Brian Kenney on the broadcast called this out because, come on. Come on, boxing.

Be better than this, please. Also, this is the classic example of what I mean when I say testifying in church. Watch the head and the hands go flying. Bow. Testifying right there. That's got to hurt getting hit in the ear, though. That's going to cost some brain. And the jaw slash throat. It's weird. By the way, i do know cornflake lamanna i love him he's a fun kid

he's had some fun fights on the lower levels and uh but uh he got he got sent to the the hell side of the cereal bowl here that is uh wow all right so luke i mentioned chris areola was unhappy with the scoring in this fight let's listen to him in the ring afterwards. Mutual respect for one another. Absolutely, man. You know what? I respect the judges, but today I always said that beauties in the eye of the beholder, they like a butterface.

Everything's pretty but their face. Honestly, man, did he win? Fine. But don't tell me you're only going to give me two, three rounds. Fuck that. I'm going to be like Dr. Dre. All y'all can suck my motherfucking dick. Luke, it only gets crazier from here.

Here's the post-fight press conference with Areola so if you know what fuck these judges i want to come back and i want to just you know these judges just leave with salivation on my mouth man it makes me feel like why am i doing this why am i doing this when they're fucking turning around and just raping me and that's exactly what i got right now i got it straight up the ass like for real yeah no vast to me joe i cried i know it's not fair at all no like for real man luke uh your thoughts please dude what have we done with our lives like this is the shit we're doing i mean what the what fucking losers we are he has his son in his arms. I don't know if you can see it on the video there.

I know. He's sitting there describing graphic details of sodomy, forced sodomy, no less. Oh, boy. And his kid is right there. His kid is like, baby shark. Do, do, do, do, do. And here dad comes around. Let's talk about sodomy.

God damn it. Even Joe Gushin was like, whoa, dude. Whoa. Like, hold on a second here. Come on,. Even Joe Goosen was like, whoa, dude. Whoa. Like, hold on a second here. Come on, bro. By the way, I saw over the weekend. I had never even heard of this film, which everyone crucified me for. But had you ever seen the Edward James Olmos film, American Me?

No, but I saw you tweet it. I might watch it. Jesus, dude. That is a. Well, there's a lot of forced. Well, rape is by definition forced. But there's a lot of prison rape in this movie that is great. Hey, BC, come see this film.

You'll love it. It's rapey. It's full of prison rape, you know, things you love. All right. Luke, there was a lot of brawls on this undercard. I won't show them all to you, but I will show you the brawls in the crowd. Here's the first one, Luke.

Look at this. Yeah, dude, so thrilled that the fans are back. I like how they keep their masks on. They're COVID conscious when they're fist fighting in the arena. Look at the guy shirtless now. He looks like Chris Areola without tattoos. Well, Luke, that wasn't the only one. Here's Sergio Mora's cell phone captured this from the crowd.

Here's the second one of the evening. Oh, yeah. Yeah yeah get some of that by the way i saw a lot of uh mma fans getting to my dms and being like bc you see this oh my god i'm like bro you ever been to a boxing match a big championship fight at msg or the barclays this shit happens a lot bro okay you know what i know what I'm saying, Luke? This is part of the deal. You know, it's part of it. You ever been to an NFL game? I mean, seriously. Oh, and I've seen some brawls at NFL games that were, I mean, epic.

Oh, look at that one. This is pretty good. Yeah, I'm just, you know, count me in as I like sports without fans. You know, you can crucify me for it. I don't care. Yeah, you're really trying to die on that hill, Luke. We'll see if your gallbladder withstands that hill for you. All right, let's go to regional MMA.

Luke, anything can happen in regional MMA. Here's Slick Nick Gantz with a flying knee through the shadows of night. Here, Luke. Oh. Now, you know, Luke, I've got to be suspect here of this venue. If you can't see the strike coming, they always say that the flying knees you don't see are the ones that hurt you the most.

I can't even see these guys in the darkness here, Luke. Yeah, he does a skip step jab. Yeah, and then comes from behind. That's interesting. Alright. Well, Luke, would you take a drink from this fountain?

I know you're a big comic book guy. Would you blow Superman? I don't know, dude. If he busted a nut, would it just blow through the back of someone's skull? Shout out to former Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash for providing this on the internet. Thank you so much there, Slash. Let's go over here, Luke. Minnesota United FC in the MLS.

Check out this souvenir this football player gave this fan, Luke. Wow! We're going to get a zoom in here. It's a contact sport. You've got to be careful out there. Wow. Let's get that guy some smelling salts to go with that scarf he's wearing, Luke. No, get him ejected.

Can you imagine going to it? It's like, how'd you get COVID? Oh, I went and saw two shitty-ass soccer teams play. And I got hit in the face with a COVID-covered ball. I mean, this guy, that's full force right there. Wow. That is right there. Wow. That is, okay. Hey, let's go over to the Francis Ngannou here.

Did you see this video of him arriving in his native Cameroon? Luke, the people were going shit for that. They were going crazy. I love it. I love when this happens. I did see this. He posted a bunch of it on his Instagram feed. Dude, he was meeting heads of state state he put the belt on his family he's got this hero's welcome it's unbelievable to watch this yeah heads

of state lawyers doctors no one was too hip for her uh Luke I will say this one day I hope in my factory town Naugatuck Connecticut I can do something good enough to get one of these things Luke okay maybe you won't maybe when factory town mma gets its first world champion maybe maybe maybe okay hey let's go to the rugby pitch luke all these down under fans we have are sending us all this but check this hit out wow oh yikes look at that samoan fella that just laid him out is that roman pacificigns? Pacific Islander of some kind of way. I don't know if he's Samoan exactly, but yeah, he fucked him up good. Is that an ejection?

Do you get ejected for that or do you get rewarded for that? I'm not sure how this works. I think you, yeah, there's certain rules about tackling in rugby. There's certain shit you can't do. All right. Luke, you love that outdoor gym that that guy made with wood and stuff. Check out this guy north of the border here, the Arctic Outdoor Gym. Can you relate to this, Luke?

No, this shit is lame. Well, he's got ice buckets. That's lame? He's using an earthquake bar, which is what that's called. I mean, when you live in upstate Minnesota, Luke, they have indoor hallways connected. Yeah, maybe put the gym inside. That's just me thinking out loud.

Says the guy who works out in his front lawn in- I don't have fucking snow. I don't have to do reps like the lady from Frozen where I'm like, let it go, let it go. I can just go put on fucking weights. I think this guy's more dedicated than you and you're jealous. That's what I think at the end of the day. I wish I had that Cambridge bar right there. I can tell you that.

Okay. Hey, Tyson Fury's back in the gym preparing, maybe for Anthony Joshua. Who knows? But, Luke, can we stop seeing this man's package here? Let's run this video. Look at these ball huggers he's wearing. What is this? I mean, honestly, honestly, just go naked.

Why do you have the red shorts on? Who is it you think you're fooling? Well, it is red panty night, Luke. We're rich, baby. All right, so there's that. And his gross ass goes right into his back i mean what are we doing hey fast food alert luke i don't know what to call this maybe a heart attack in waiting would you eat this monstrosity that would send me to the hospital i'm not even doing bc i'm not even doing a bit so the way my

gallbladder works is it helps digest fat in the body so they always tell you like avoid high fat stuff which means you can still have unhealthy stuff but it has to be low in fat this is high in fat this would be me calling you an hour later being like i hope you got gas in your lilith fair mobile because we're headed back to the er back at hospital get ready here comes luke well this is a luke we're running out of time. Let's keep it going here. Okay. Drunk Chick Fall of the Week, Luke. I guess there was a special on mimosas here at this brunch. You got to be careful.

Yeah. Is she white, BC? I couldn't tell. Oh, yeah. Well, yeah. Okay. Very, very off-brand whiteness here. I'm very surprised.

Okay. Let's keep it going here. Let's go over to the golf. Luke, I think they call this one a hole-in-two. Maybe? I hope this asshole... Oh, good lord. Right in the pills there, Doc.

This dumb fuck should be glad he wasn't blinded. He was just made sterile. It was this or three needles, fuckhead. Take the win. Let's go out to the track here, Luke. You got a 100-meter sprint. All right, to the winner goes the spoils.

Who do you got here? The white guy? It's four white guys and a black guy? Great. Wow, fantastic. Oh, shit! it's four white guys and a black guy great wow fantastic but you gotta slow down oh shit yes yes like it's like dude i could have sworn we were running with a black guy in fact i'm pretty sure he won and then he just disappeared lord giveth and he taketh away luke all right

i got one more for you uh thank you to Subway Creatures on Instagram for giving us this, Luke. If I see this, I'm never traveling again. I mean, I don't know if I ever want to go on it again, Luke. So he's got a pint of Reese's ice cream, and he's sitting on one of the older New York City subways because you can tell that the seats go in different directions, and he's just taking it straight to the dome he's got a covid mask though maybe he's using that as a napkin you know what

i'm glad he's covering his throat from getting covid that's smart all right wow that's the shit let's end it you gotta get it you gotta hop here's here's probably the best part of that story bc yeah i bet he just found that on the floor and then started eating it pretty soon luke you and i were fully vaccinated now we're gonna be back in those same subways all right brother god dude i'm like not looking forward to that at all i gotta be honest with you all right what do you have luke for a uh odds and ends before you get out of here yes odds and ends uh for me i don't know if you guys saw this or not. I don't know what to make of it. She made her debut. First of all, she looked fucking awesome.

Luana Pinheiro was her name. Some Brazilian woman. I don't know what her level of judo was, but it was fucking high. She took in, she was beating the shit out of Randa Marcos, but she took an illegal up kick. Now, BC, here's the point I want to make. I don't know how bad the up kick was. It looked pretty bad, but I've seen worse, but you know, you just, it's hard to know what the role is, but you guys, we talked about this during the

Aljamain Sterling fight, which is if you are incentivized to play it up because you can win via disqualification, if you do, and you don't have to be in a fight anymore then you just might start seeing that i don't know what happened i would love to get your take on sbc but here's the one point i do want to make about all of this are we really going to argue that athletes at this level won't embellish illegal shots if it's in their interest to embellish embellish illegal shots yes I got to tell you, whether it happened here or whether it didn't, the idea that that claim is somehow taboo and against the rules, I got to tell you, I don't buy that. That's fair.

I thought it was fair for Paul Felder to at least question out loud. It's because of the way she fell. She actually got kicked twice. It was with both feet. And, you know, I mean, Again, I'm a keyboard warrior, so I'm not going to try to act like getting a flush kick isn't going to... But the way she fell back was sort of like, oh, okay, here we go.

And then she got carried out of the cage. So I don't know. But I do agree with your point, Luke. Unless, you know, if the system's set up that way, it encourages you to do that to get the win. I don't know if we're going to see Randa Marcos too much longer. Isn't she like 10 and 12, Luke? Her record is not

exemplary. But you know, you've got a lot of women who have records like that. You've got to kind of let it slide, I think. Yeah, I'll let it slide. Alright. Quickly to close here, Luke. I didn't even talk it up. It was kind of under my radar. I knew Katie Taylor, the undisputed lightweight women's boxing champion, was back

on DAZN over the weekend in the co-main event to the Joseph Parker split decision win over Derek Chisora, which turned out to be an okay fight down the stretch. It was pretty good. Luke, this fight turned into great theater, and I want to shout these two ladies out. So they met at the 2012 Olympics. It's Natasha Jonas there in the white.

She's from the U.K. Katie Taylor got the win nine years ago jonas has wanted a rematch ever since she came in with just one defeat she was the bigger puncher and although it took a few rounds for this thing to get going if there was ever a fight that was a better advertisement that we need to get past this archaic two minute rounds in women's boxing 10 rounds and title fights can we just go 12 rounds three minutes what are we doing here this fight was so much fun jonas was the bigger puncher. Katie Taylor gets a very, very close decision victory unanimous at the end, but you could have given it to Jonas just the

same. Although Taylor outworked her and really put on some speed flurries down the stretch. Jonas walked her down when the fight needed a big moment. She stepped up and brought it. She's kind of sneaky, too, in a few ways, Luke. This was great. And I do want to shout out women's boxing. A lot of fans just avoid it. I've always been like, you know, until you're going to give us a reason to really care, are we going to care?

There's reasons now to care. I love what, you know, I've worked for Ring City USA, the NBC Sports Series. We had a couple of female main events. We had Amanda Serrano on. I mean, there's been some really fun fights. We've got players from Clarissa Shields to Katie Taylor to Michaela Mayer. I mean, there's finally faces, and they're marketable, and they're fun. Katie Taylor had those two bouts with Delphine Pursun that were wars in all action.

This one was more of a tactical war, but it was high-paced. It was great theater. Another big win for Katie Taylor. And you know, she's must-see, Luke. She's the pound-for-pound best in my eyes in the world, although Clarissa Shields is right there. And I love that these women are going out of their way to change weight classes and meet each other. I hope women's boxing can continue the run they've been on in the last year or two, because fights like this are really going to bring new fans. I just think we've got to get away from these old archaic rules.

Fair enough. All right, I'm up against it, so we've got to close the show here today. Appreciate everybody who watched. As I said, me and BC, show's over. We're both traveling. He's going to drive there. I'm going to fly. But we're going to see all you donks this week at the Mohegan Sun,

certainly through our coverage if you're not there live. We're looking forward to covering Bellator 258 on the ground. Tons of content. But we're going to see all you donks this week at the Mohegan Sun, certainly through our coverage if you're not there live. We're looking forward to covering Bellator 258 on the ground. Tons of content coming your way. So give the video a thumbs up. Hit subscribe. If you want to follow us on social, we can put up the graphic here. You can see it.

Morning Combat's the same name everywhere. And BC and I have slightly different names between Twitter and Facebook. Please email the show for Wednesday's fan submissions as well as Friday's dead wrongs or anything else you want to reach the show about, morningcombat at gmail.com. Bellator 258 is on Friday. If you want to try Showtime for 30 days, you can go to showtime.com, get a 30-day free trial. When you're ready to take that leap, there you go.

show.com slash bellatormma $4.99 a month for the first six months and store.show.com for some merch if you are in the eligible area to get it. All right. For everyone at Molka, Showtime, CBS Sports, factory towns across America, including but not limited to those in Connecticut,

that's Brian Campbell. I'm Luke Thomas. Until next time, may all of your gains be loyal.